Show and hide gridlines in excel

Show and hide gridlines in excel

Gridlines are the faint lines that appear between cells on a worksheet in Microsoft Excel. They help you to organize and align your data in rows and columns. Sometimes, you may want to show or hide gridlines in Excel for various reasons. In this article, I will show you how to do that in different ways, using the latest version of Excel for Windows.

How to show or hide gridlines in Excel from the View tab

The easiest way to show or hide gridlines in Excel is to use the View tab on the ribbon. Here are the steps to follow:

Select the worksheet or worksheets where you want to show or hide gridlines. You can select multiple worksheets by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the sheet tabs at the bottom of the Excel window.
Go to the View tab and find the Show group.
Check or uncheck the Gridlines box to show or hide gridlines on the selected worksheets.

How to show or hide gridlines in Excel from the Page Layout tab

Another way to show or hide gridlines in Excel is to use the Page Layout tab on the ribbon. Here are the steps to follow:

Select the worksheet or worksheets where you want to show or hide gridlines.
Go to the Page Layout tab and find the Sheet Options group.
Check or uncheck the View box under Gridlines to show or hide gridlines on the selected worksheets.

How to show or hide gridlines in Excel by changing the fill color

You can also show or hide gridlines in Excel by changing the fill color of the cells. Excel will hide gridlines if the background is white, and show them if the cells have no fill or a different color. Here are the steps to follow:

Select the range of cells where you want to show or hide gridlines. You can select the entire worksheet by clicking on the Select All button in the top-left corner of the sheet.
Go to the Home tab and find the Font group.
Click on the Fill Color button and choose a color from the palette. If you want to hide gridlines, choose white. If you want to show gridlines, choose no fill or any other color.

How to make Excel hide gridlines only in specific cells

If you want to hide gridlines only in some cells, but not in others, you can use a combination of fill color and borders. Here are the steps to follow:

Select the range of cells where you want to hide gridlines.
Go to the Home tab and find the Font group.
Click on the Fill Color button and choose white from the palette.
Click on the Borders button and choose No Border from the drop-down menu.

This will remove both gridlines and borders from the selected cells, making them appear blank.

How to remove gridlines by changing their color

Another way to hide gridlines in Excel is to change their color so that they blend with the background. This will not affect the printout of your worksheet, but it will make it look cleaner on your screen. Here are the steps to follow:

Go to the File tab and click on Options.
In the Excel Options dialog box, click on Advanced in the left pane.
Under Display options for this worksheet, find Gridline color and click on the color box next to it.
Choose a color that matches your worksheet background from the palette. For example, if your background is white, choose white. If your background is gray, choose gray.
Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.

Conclusion

In this article, I have shown you how to show or hide gridlines in Excel using different methods. You can use any of these methods depending on your preference and needs. I hope you found this article helpful and informative.